
At 2 p.m. Sunday, April 26, San Diego Symphony will present a special free concert, “Brightest and Best,” featuring members of the Civic Youth Orchestra, the Mainly Mozart Youth Orchestra and the San Diego Youth Symphony. Guest soloists include 16-year-old Hazel Friedman, a junior at La Jolla High School, and 11-year-old Tyler Kim, who lives in Rancho Peñasquitos and attends Pivot Charter School in San Diego. Kim will play the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and Friedman will play the third movement of Camille Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 5. The two soloists have exceptional credits at home and abroad. Both are into competitions and winning competitions. Both are into water as well. She’s a varsity swimmer at La Jolla High, and he professes a love of swimming, biking, skateboarding and tae kwan do. The remaining musicians will join the orchestra and conductor Ken-David Masur in performance of Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2. The concert takes place at Jacobs Music Center, 7th and B streets downtown. Reservations are required. Go to sdsymphony.com and click “Best and Brightest” to register by Friday, April 24. Our fascination with celebrity Jonathan Tolins’ off-Broadway hit “Buyer & Cellar” continues through Sunday, May 10 in an extended engagement at The Old Globe Theatre’s White Theatre. The sole performer, appealing Broadway actor David Turner, insists at the outset that nothing is real except the setting – Barbra Streisand’s basement mini-mall – as limed in her 2010 book, “My Passion for Design.” Turner portrays Alex More, an unemployed Hollywood actor hired to be Streisand’s shopkeeper. The diva finally appears – and with subtle changes in posture and facial expression, Turner becomes Streisand. Among others, he also portrays his own doubting boyfriend and Streisand’s husband, James Brolin. As he maintains the items in Streisand’s shops, More becomes increasingly convinced that the needy singer/actor is actually his real friend and also his eventual entre into the kind of showbiz career he deserves. “Buyer & Cellar” is for all who idolize, who love one-person shows and who long for an insider’s view. Considering there is no one like Barbra, the show has a built-in audience. “Buyer & Cellar” continues Tuesdays through Sundays through May 10 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre at the Conrad Prebys Theater Center, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park. Find tickets at theoldglobe.org or (619) 23-GLOBE. Opera here and there San Diego Opera continues its current season with the Mariachi opera “El Posado Nunca Se Termina” at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, April 25. There’s free music on the Civic Plaza from noon to 7 p.m. except during the 2 p.m. performance. Meanwhile, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley, who sings Scarpia next season in San Diego Opera’s “Tosca,” plays another bad guy you love to love when he opens in the title role of Vancouver Opera’s “Sweeney Todd,” playing Saturday, April 25 through Sunday, May 3. Cast as Mrs. Lovett is Grimsley’s real-life wife, Luretta Bybee. Next spring, Vancouver presents “Evita.” It must be said that “Butterfly” and “Rigoletto” are also in Vancouver’s season, along with a production of Nico Muhly and Stephen Karam’s 2011 opera “Dark Sisters.”









